Christmas Time

I will start by saying my Christmas here has not that great one I've been sick all week nearly and I didn't get to finish taking pictures with all my students so I'm a little annoyed. One other thing, today I tried to use my debit card from England to buy some games on the Internet. I wanted to do this so that I would have something to play as soon as I get home. But oh no my stupid debit card isn't working just like before nearly 4 months ago. I don't know what the hell is going on. I'm going to close my damn Abbey account and get a new one with someone else because this is a joke now. I told them the problem months ago and they told me they had sorted it out by sending me a new card but no, I still can't use it online. Anyways looks like I'll just have to save my money so I guess its not all bad haha.

Apart from being sick and not being able to buy anything online everything here has pretty much been the same. However I did get some apples from my students on Christmas Eve and some presents also which was nice. Oh something interesting did happen on Monday though, some criminals were brought to the school and made an example of so that the students wouldn't get any ideas about committing crimes haha. One of the criminals was an actual student from the school, supposedly he stole money or roughed some people with the others up or something. There were about 4 or 5 of them in total. Either way it was them now who were being roughed up, it was quite strange though to see this because they were all tied up and treated like animals.

Not sure if I will go to Xi'An next week with the school if I still feel sick but I'll have to see how that goes.

The Beginning of the End

Today is the first day of my last teaching week at The 2nd Middle School of Zhen'an. The day started off as any other normal day however it wasn't until my 2nd Junior class of the day that one student began to cry mid-lesson.

The girl started to explain what was wrong to Mrs. Di, I just thought she was having problems or something until Mrs. Di told me that it was because I was leaving. When I saw the tears in her eyes I started to feel a bit emotional, I'm not sure why but then I just started to cry. I honestly felt sad that I would not see the students anymore after a couple of weeks and it didn't help that one student was crying for me either. I tried to comfort her and tell her not to worry as I wont be leaving just yet. One boy in the class told me not to cry, which I thought was quite nice.

Other students began to tell me in their own special way that they will miss me when I leave. One student gave me a key-ring with a picture of her in it. I thought that was quite nice since it made a change from all the plastic stars the children normally make and give to me.

After I had finished my lesson I wanted to take pictures with all the students. The students all seemed so eager to take pictures with me. They all fought and pushed each other to get close to me but I had to tell them to stop and calm down. I continued this for the 4 other classes I had for the day. It was funny that the Senior class I have on Monday's were quite happy to take pictures with me or maybe they were just happy that they won't have Oral English Lessons anymore lol.


Overall the day today was quite emotional but I can't let that get to me. Its just my time to leave. Hopefully if a new teacher comes to replace me they will be much better than me rather than worse in teaching, I say this because I would like the students to better their Spoken English.

PS: I forgot to say that in my last class after we had finished taking pictures two boys started to fight, I think it was because of all the pushing. I think something got broken or one of the boys got hurt. I was quick to jump in and break them up, I told them to relax and calm down as I held on to one of the students while some of the students held the other boy. Apart from this the day was fine.

The Oral English Contest - The Aftermath

The contest has finally come and gone but I have to say that I am proud of all my students that took part in the contest.

All my students from Senior and Junior 1 (that's about 1000) gathered out in the school courtyard in preparation for the performance. The students were there to help encourage their fellow classmates and friends.

The other foreign teachers and I sat down right in front of the students who were spectating. While I was sitting there it kind of felt as if I was one of the judges on X-Factor/American Idol haha. However I did not let that phase me since I was there to mark my students on their performance and they would be more nervous than I was.

The students came up one by one first the Juniors then the Seniors. Many of the students felt nervous when they spoke and often made silly mistakes and took very long pauses when they were speaking. I tried to encourage them as best as I could but it seemed that the pressure may have been a little to much for some. After about 1 hour we had a slight break, for entertainment two students came up and sung a song for the audience. I thought that the two students did a good job considering how many people they were standing in front of.


I was slightly disappointed in some of my students who were spectating because they were making a lot of noise and they made it difficult for the judges and I to hear what the competitors were saying. It wasn't until one of the school leaders told the kids to shut up that they stopped making noise.

All the students who took part in the contest received something for their effort. I think they all received a Walkman or something but the winners won a dictionary that was quite thick. The two students that won did really well and I think they deserved to win the competition.

I was able to take many pictures and even film some of my students singing while the students had a small break during the contest. But I can say I enjoyed seeing and listening to the students perform. I felt a little sad while I was watching because I knew that I will only have a couple more weeks with the students before I go back to England.


Once the contest was over the VSO teachers, their translators and I were invited to dinner with some leaders from the county. The dinner was quite nice and made a change from having noodles or rice everyday. The restaurant was a Hot Pot restaurant so we needed to cook our own food in the pot. But I enjoyed myself while I was there.

So to summarise the contest was a success apart from the small few that were misbehaving but I can safely say I enjoyed the day overall .

OMG WE........

Yes that's right we lost the basketball game. Luckily though this time our team did much better than the first game we played together. This time we only lost by 3-points instead of the originally embarrassing 25-points.

However I did notice that we played a lot better as a team. We did more passing and took less 3-pointers. This allowed us to keep up with the other team in scoring. Although often as a team we made silly mistakes such as bad passing and other mis-communication.

The headmaster was watching my game this time and told me (or so I think) "...too bad that you lost, Dorian." I thought its just a game no need to feel too disappointed but we could have won the game so I was a little disappointed with myself and the other members in my team. I guess better luck next time.

Im not Kobe Bryant you know!!!

Today was the day I was told that I had to play in the teachers basketball game. I kept trying to tell the teachers that I'm not that good and I haven't played in a long time. However this did not seem to bother the teachers (or maybe they did not understand).

After I had finished my classes at 4:05pm I put on my jersey to represent Junior 1 Grade 7. It seemed like many teachers had high hopes on me but I did not like the pressure. One teacher did say, don't worry if we win or loose we just have to try our best. After he said that I thought ok cool, some of the pressure has been lifted.

The game began at 4:30pm but before you knew it my team was down 15 points or so. I was thinking what the hell is going on. Then I realised that many of the teachers on my team were fouling the other team and that was one of the reasons how they were getting their points. The other reason was that my team was getting too greedy with the ball and always going for 3's (I'm not going to lie I was that person at times lol). I felt the difficulty in communication between my team and I was also a factor in our unfortunate demise. In the end the score was a slightly embarrassing 21 to 55.

We still have two other games to play...I think. Hopefully the team has learned from this game and will work much better together next time, that includes me also.

Not long now =(

It seems like I do not have that long left in China. It feels like the weeks are going very quickly now compared to how they were in the beginning. I can say that I am enjoying being here but sometimes I do feel its time for me to go home.

The school said they would like to me finish teaching on the 5th January. But after this date they would like to send me on a 5 day trip to maybe Xi'an to congratulate me on my hard work at the school.

This sounds like a good idea, it would be nice however if I could go to maybe Shanghai or somewhere else like that. I say this because I can go to Xi'an anytime I want since it is so close to Zhen'an. But my assistant told me that those place are expensive to get to...but we'll see. =P

Its not long either until the Oral English Contest. I like the other foreign teachers will be judges during the contest. The students will perform a number of English activities to demonstrate how good their spoken English abilities really are.

Wang Ba, Wang Ba, Wang Ba

Like always the days here are pretty much becoming the norm. Everyday its just the same thing. I think once the highway between Zhen'an and Xi'an is completed I will go to Xi'An maybe to the Zoo or to see the Terracotta Warriors.

I have also been told today that the school will hold the oral English competition on the December 24th. It also appears that I will not get to have Christmas Day off from work which is a bit of a pity. But my assistant told me that the Headmaster might give me a present because its a special day for us Westerners haha.

There was also a visit at the school last week by some leaders but it turned out they did not come to the school to inspect it on that day. This was a bit annoying since some of my students rehearsed something to perform in front of them, ah well what can you do.

But like I said everything is pretty cool here however I feel I can honestly I'd rather break my arm then have to choose between noodles or rice to eat for lunch/dinner. When I go to Xi'An next I can maybe buy some different food to eat.

Oh yea before I forget can someone tell me whats so funny about the word Wang Ba? thanks =P

YES WE DID!!!!!!!!!!

Well I didn't think this day was possible well not for another 50 years or so but we now have our first Black (mixed-race) President of America. Im just really happy for Barack Obama and hope that he can deliver on everything he has promised.

!!!!!!!!!!!!! WELL DONE BARACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just the same old

Well, things have gotten to be quite normal here now. Its seems like I have gotten into a routine and the days/weeks are just flying by.

Last week the school had their annual Sports Day which was quite exciting. Many of the students were pumped up cheering on their fellow class members. All the cheering they were doing got me all into the mood too. It also seems now that the students are becoming more familiar with me and more and more of them are saying hello to me. However I can't remember if they are from my class or not.

On the weekend Barbara's boyfriend came to stay with us. Barbara said he was tall but I didn't really understand until I saw him. The guy must have been around 6"5 or something. But he was a pretty cool guy. Although he didn't speak English but he told Barbara that when I talk I often move about so he could sort of understand what I was talking about.

Right now I'm at school, no one told me I did not have to teach the Juniors this morning because they weren't at school. Also no one told me that they were not raising the flag so I woke up at 6:30 for nothing.

QQ and I

I saw Hong's comment and thought I would write this. Well I have managed to get myself QQ but I cant use it anywhere because I dont have it on any computers haha. Also all the QQs are Chinese here (as you would have expected) so I do not understand. But like I said I cant use QQ because I have no computer to use it on haha.

But my QQ number is: 858559232

So add me and maybe when I next go to the Internet Cafe I can use it there. =)

O_o Aiyaaa what did you say!!!! & .....Xiu Pin Park at Night =)

Why do they have to give me more responsibility haha. Right now at the school the Headmaster wants me to set up English Corner and also an Oral English Contest. This is a lot of responsibility for me since the headmaster said if the students perform badly we have failed our jobs lol.

I have decided to have the English Corner on Tuesday from 5:00pm onwards since that is the day I do not have many lessons. I felt that on this day I could use my time to prepare what we (the students) will practice in English Corner. However the rules/information about whats happening is still a little sketchy at the moment, they don't really tell you much here.

It has also come to light that the other foreign teachers from VSO will help with English Corner. This will be a big help to me since I can focus my time on on the students that will perform in the competition. Mrs D also told me that they want me to perform something at the Oral English Contest. Right now I don't know what I will do but to be honest I'd rather not do anything at all but I don't think that is a possibility haha.

Yesterday Barbara, Nan and I went up the mountain to Xiu Pin Park at night. The park is quite different at night and quite nice because of the lights which turn on there. We also managed to fly the kite we bought in Xi An there. The wind was quite strong so we could fly the kite pretty well up there. Unfortunately the wind was a bit too strong and we lost 5 kites or so ='(.


When we finally got to the end of we saw all these old people dancing in the open area. They were dancing to Indian music and doing something that looked like Indian dancing but I'm not too sure haha. There must have been maybe 30 of them there all doing the same routine, it was funny but at the same time quite cool to see.

The Cutie and Taekwondo

Well nothing much has been happening really. School has been getting quite easy and nothing out of the ordinary has been happening. I still hang out in the shop which sells all those random items. The people there are cool and the boss is crazy.

Often there is a girl there that helps out, supposedly she is the niece of the bosses wife. I was surprised to see her at the shop the other day because I was under the impression she was going away, well that's what she said anyways.

Her English is not that great but she can answer some simple questions. She is nice to hang out with. The other day she kept saying "...lets go shopping" but since I had nothing to do I said sure. We went to the supermarket for her to buy some random items like toothpaste, soap and shampoo. I guess these things were for her to stay the night with her auntie. Originally we took the bus to the supermarket but we ended up walking back, why I don't know @_@. We took a short cut through my school because she said she wanted to see her friend...I didn't mind. Once she had finished talking I told her I was going home and I'd see her later she said "...sure, see you later =)"

After I had finished eating my dinner at one of the local restaurants (I call this one Beijing because they had some Olympic stickers in the window). While in Beijing the crazy man from the shop came in and the lady who works in Beijing asked me if he was my friend because he was talking to her about me and I said "...yea, I guess so lol". After I had finished my meal this lady came in to the restaurant and all the women working in the restaurant asked (well gestured) that I should go dancing in the club upstairs with the women who just came in. If the girls who I live with had been with me at the time maybe I would have gone but they weren't so I politely declined haha.


Once I left Beijing I went back to the shop to hang out. The girl was there and she asked me if I wanted to go somewhere...then she started to pretend kick and punch me. I didn't know what she was talking about at the time. Later another one of her friends from my school came to the shop. Her English was a bit better and she explained what she meant. First she wanted to visit her friend and I was like ok, I'm not doing anything else.

We took a taxi into the center near the supermarket to meet her friend. While in the taxi the girls friend asked me if I recognised her and I said "...no, why are you in my class?" and she said "...yes" I was like ahh ok then, cool. The friend she wanted to meet was some hairdresser and he had some funky looking hair haha. Anyways after they finished talking they asked me if I wanna see some something then they started to kick and punch the air again. I said sure why not.


We then walked down the street and went into a building with no lights on. The boy then used his phone as a light as we walked down the several flights of stairs. At the bottom he opened the door to a room filled with mats and punching bags. From the back room emerged 5 or so boys, they seemed surprised at first to see me. After the group I was with explained who I was they started to demonstrate some Taekwondo for me. They wanted to take pictures with me but kept joking about how tall I was.


I asked them If I could take pictures also and they were like sure. I asked them to perform so I could take pictures of them and they did. It was quite funny watching them pose and fight, some of the shots I got are quite funny.

After about 15mins we left and went back to the shop. I told the girl I was tired and I would see her later so I went back to my room. So that day was quite fun and interesting.

My Weekend

Finally....I get a weekend off from school (not including the holiday I had not too long ago haha). Well on Thursday the girls I live with told me they were going to Xi An to pick up some winter clothes from their University. I asked them if I could go with them and they said "...sure, why not ^_<". I really just wanted to leave Zhen'an for a little bit but I also knew that if the four girls weren't around I would be pretty board.

Not sure if had said before but the girls names are Yomi, Barbara, Smile and Nan. Often we keep calling each other names from the Television Show, Journey to the West. Its a little ironic that we do this because this blog is based on that concept but in reverse. Most of the time they call me Wukong because I always copy Wukong when he says "...sifu" haha. Smile is the horse because she is kinda white and Yomi is often the fish man and Barbara is the pig. However Nan often is referred to, as many characters from the show.

On friday we bought tickets at around 48 yuan for both tickets, to Xi An and back. We left Zhen'an at around 8pm and arrived in Xi An at maybe 10:30pm. We were not able to get seats on this train so we had to stand up. Although we were standing it was quite funny because we were playing silly games with each other. Another thing Barbara and Yomi kept telling me there was no juice in Xi An and I could only drink Beer or Water. I was thinking they must be lying so I asked some random woman sitting behind us. I said "...can I buy juice in Xi An?" and the woman replied "...yes". I said to Barbara "...shame, I can buy drink" but Barbara seemed to think the woman could not speak English and that is why she said yes. So I asked the woman "...is your name Mary?" and the woman replied "...no", but Barbara still thought she could not speak English so I just asked her "...do you understand English?" and the women said "...yes I understand English ^_<". I was laughing mainly due to the fact that Barbara was now very embarassed because she thought the women didnt understand what we were talking about haha.

While on the train Smile befriended some guy who happend to work in a computer shop. I thought to myself cool, maybe he can help me get a discount on a laptop. However we did not really talk about that but they did get his card. We ended up playing a game with this guy instead of talking about computers. Basically Smile would tell the guy something in English and then he would say it to me to see if I could understand. Then the same thing happend with Yomi and I but surprisingly he seemed to understand what I was saying haha. When we arrived in Xi An the girls took me to a hotel to stay. The room was 178 yuan but because of the time and some negotiation from the girls the room went down to 120 yuan. The room was quite good and I had my own bathroom with shower. I only stayed one night in this hotel and the girls (well just Barbara and Nan) came to pick me up in the morning.

That day we just walked around Xi An, we went to the Bell Tower (or rather walked around it) and went to the Drum Tower (haha I dont know what its called). We then went to the Islamic Street, if you didn't guess by the name this is where all the Chinese Muslims hang out. They have shops and restaurants all along this street. Near the Drum Tower we saw this man flying a kite. The kite must have been maybe 15cmx15cm but on the string there were 30 kites all flying at the same time. At the time I was thinking wow I want to do that. The man then gave Nan the string and she was flying it for a bit. We decided to buy one and try it for ourselves, but when we tried to fly them it did not appear as easy as it did when the man was doing it. After several atempts at trying to fly the kite we decided to call it a day.

Barbara and Nan took me to a place called Ginwa which is the place to find all the expensive designer items in Xi An. We went in and I was shocked at how expensive everything was, most of the items were comparable to the prices in London. I thought to myself this place is a rip-off. We left pretty quickly without buying anything as you'd might expect.

Later that day we decided to eat at KFC because there isn't one in Zhen'an and I kinda missed having junk food. While at KFC we basically stayed for hours to waste time. We had decided to go Karaoke but at 12am so this was the reason we were wasting time. We also had the idea to stay at Karaoke for hours until the morning to save money on me staying at a hotel.

At around 6:30pm we left KFC and went to the girls university. Their university was called "Xi An Normal University" don't ask me why its called normal because I dont know. Most of the students attending this unversity want to become teachers. I went to their canteen to have some dinner, I told Nan I wanted Chow Mein but I ended up getting Chow Fan for some reason. I didnt really mind that much because the rice was alright. By this time it was only maybe 8:00pm so we had to kill some time before we went Karaoke. The girls introduced me to some of their friends and we hung out with each other in the school grounds playing games.

At around 11:00pm we all gathered ready to go to karaoke. At this time however there were very few buses running and the walk to KTV took around 15 mins. The road was pretty dead, very few cars and no people what so ever. We finally managed to arrive at KTV at around 11:30. It cost just 80 yuan and all six of us could stay there until 6:30am. There were a a fair amount of people in KTV at this time and as per usual they were surprised to see a black foreigner in this place lol.

Once we were in the room I did not manage to sing that much mainly due to the fact that 95% of the songs were in Chinese and the English songs on there were kinda crap. It was a pitty I only knew Japanese songs otherwise I think I could have sung many songs that night. Shortly after getting in the room I began to feel tired as did the others. Everyone began to fall asleep but it was so uncomfortable trying to sleep on that big sofa. I kept falling in and out of sleep and my neck started to become stiff, but it was a funny experience sleeping in karaoke.

At around 6:30am the KTV staff came in and told us to leave. We all went back to the University but the girls left me and then pawned me off onto one of their friends. But I will let them off because they had things they needed to do in Xi An. Their friend was sweet and was happy at the chance to practice her English with me since she was an English major. Later that day she called up her other friends and we all played table-tennis and badminton for a bit. The Chinese are very keen on playing sports, at this time though I was feeling quite tired. I was practically half asleep.

One of the girls with us told me that she was a friend of Smile's and they are roomates. There was another girl with her that went by the name......shit I forgot her name and the other girl....im sorry TT__TT. But anyways she was told by Smile to look after me and take me where ever I want to go. I thought ok thats sounds cool. But because of the time constraints we could no go many places. In the end we went back to the Bell Tower but instead of KFC that day I had Mac Donalds instead hehe. Normally I don't eat that poison but that day it felt so good to have some junk food haha.

I told her that I wanted to buy a laptop so we went around looking for one. We ended up in the shop Gome looking for one but the majority of them were too expensive and comparable to prices in England but the only thing was that the models were old. So in the end I did not buy anything.

She then took me back to the train station in the afternoon to meet up with the other girls. I told her thanks for looking after me and she said "...no worries ^_^" which was nice. We all got on the train but luckily this time we had seats so we could have a good rest.

But overall my trip to Xi An was pretty cool and maybe I can go there again when I have time. But I would say the smog there is not very appealing and I was very happy to come back to Zhen'An with its blue sky, cleaner air and the mountains.

I have been bit lazy in updating this thing. But I will try to update it as much as I can.

My New Friends......The 4 Meinu LOL

Well on the school side of things nothing much has been happening, except the fact the school dean doesn't know whats going on with the time-table. I was a little pissed off because I was told that the lesson had been changed because of the holiday but it turned out that they had not changed at all. I wasn't prepared to teach next weeks lesson this week, so I ended up playing games with my Monday and Tuesday class. Oh I had those classes on Saturday and Sunday because like I said the time-table had supposedly changed. So in fact I did not need to go to school on those days.

Well on Sunday evening my new housemates arrived. They were four girls who will be the translators / assistants for the other foreign teachers from VSO. They are all around my age and they are all pretty friendly which is good. Since then we have all just been hanging out with each other. They often come to my room at night to hang out and steal my food (damn them ¬_¬).

Lately we have been going out for dinner together also. Yesterday was funny because we went to some restaurant that I don't like and I told them this but they still wanted to go. Once we arrived at the restaurant we saw the other foreign teachers eating there. It was funny because all the foreigners in the town were all in one place haha. The reason I don't like this place is because its expensive and the portions of food are small.

The girls ordered some Hot Pot (they order that all the time) and I just had Mi Fan (rice) with some Pork. However the meat in the Hot Pot was chicken but the girls seemed to think that the meat had a strange smell. I thought it was quite funny because they were having an argument with the cook there. My rice also did not taste very nice, it was dry. Well all I said to them was "I told you this place was bad...lol" and it seemed like they agreed with me. In The end they manage to get half off what they would have paid for the Hot Pot.

Later that evening we went to the center of town to by a DVD player. The VSO teachers found all these DVDs (pirate ones) in their office so I thought we should have something to watch them on. I also wanted to watch my j-drama Liar Game and Attention Please on it. We had gone to the same shop earlier but I did not bring my discs with me and I wanted to make sure they played in the DVD player ok before I (we) bought it. Well anyways we ended up buying it but we were supposed to get some karaoke Mic's with them (for free) but the guy we had spoken to the first time wasn't there and this new guy did not know what the hell we were talking about. So we ended up not getting the Mic's because we would have to pay an extra 30 yuan.

I set the player up in my room because Its near the kitchen I told them lol. The girls came later that evening but didn't know what they wanted to watch. One of them suggested Liar Game and I was like sure. We only watched one episode because the girls wanted to go to bed. They seemed to enjoy the show (I think). Oh it has Japanese audio but English subtitles, often they would ask me to explain an English word for them.

I would say the only annoying thing is that the player glows blue even when its not on so its very annoying when you try and go to sleep. The only way to get rid of it is to plug the thing out.

Right now I'm at school waiting for my lesson, I came here at 7:30 but my lesson doesn't start until 10:30. It is so pointless being here at this time with nothing to do, all I do is use the Internet. This doesn't not help me or the students.

Anyways that's it for now, sayonara lol

Its Sunday But.....

Well its Sunday today but guess what I'm at School. But no its not because I'm Teaching or anything its because Mrs. D told me I was. But it turns out I don't start until Monday. This is annoying me now, I had to get up at 6.30 to get ready and it turns out I don't even have to teach anything. Well I guess its not that bad since I have to get back into the routine of getting up early (not like I don't do that already anyways.) and getting ready for School.

Nothing much has been happening recently, since You Lan left haven't been doing much. I went for a few walks with the other foreign teachers and went back up the mountain a couple of times. But nothing really exciting.

Yesterday I decided to go into one of the new shops near the School. By the way every time there is a new shop that opens they put a whole load of fire works outside the shop then just set them off on the street. The noise is so loud, the first time I heard it I almost had a heart attack. They sounded like gun shots going off.

Anyways I went into the shop and like most places people in there are quite friendly they often tell me to sit down and relax. Well this place was no different, I sat down this time since I had nothing to do. Also the little girl from the supermarket was in there too so I decided to hang out for a bit. In this shop were two boys and the boss works in the shop next door.

While I was there they let me use their laptop/internet. Most of the time I just fooled about on Youtube and showed them videos. They seemed to like the R&B videos I was showing them or rather they liked the dancing in the videos.

Later the boss came and spoke to me (or tried to) and then they began to teach me Chinese words/phrases. One of them was something like "Menu Go Lai" but I'm not too sure how you spell it. It means something like "pretty girl/young girl come here" it was quite funny when I was saying it to people. They told me to say it to some older ladies too, luckily though they they just thought it was funny lol.

I stayed in that shop for a few hours mostly chatting/playing with the girl. She was the only one who could understand some English. However there were times when the boys and the boss of the shops just wanted to take pictures with me. They probably want to tell their friends they have a black friend lol.

Well today there are supposed to be 4 Chinese girls coming to live with us. They will be translators for the foreign teachers. The house is going to be packed now, luckily we don't all have to share a shower. But its good now since I will have someone young to talk with. Looks like I can go to the club now lol.

Anyways that's its for today, will post later cya.

Up In The Mountains

OK so I've had a few days off from school, not including today though because I'm back at school writing this. On Sunday I went to my normal restaurant for my dinner but this time the families eldest daughter was there. Here name was You Lan and she was also 22 like me. She told me that she is learning English at University and would like to become my friend to practice English with me. I didn't mind because this gave me someone else to talk with.

That same evening You Lan asked me many questions such as what do you like to eat, what music do I like and what do I like to do when I'm not at school for example. After she heard my answers she said that she would cook a meal for me at the restaurant and that I must come on Monday to have it. I was said "...are you sure?" she just said "...yes" so I thought ok then.

When I woke up on Monday I also thought to myself...."Its about time I got a haircut". I phoned Mrs. D and asked her for some help, she told me to meet her at this hair salon because she was already there getting her hair done. When I got there a lot of the people in the place were interested in seeing a black man but ah well they gonna just have to get used to it. When my time came to cut my hair, the guy didn't know what to do. I had showed them a picture from a book of what I would like but still they were a little confused. The guy tried to cut my hair as if it was straight hair. First he would comb it using a fine tooth come and then try and use the clippers. But I kept on telling them just to comb it then go over my whole head with the clippers. Eventually they got what I meant, the haircut isn't the best but for 8 yuan (which is like 80p) I cant really complain. They also washed my hair twice and it still only cost 8 yuan.

Anyways after the haircut the other foreign teachers and I went to the mountains with each of our assistants. After a climb of about 400 steps (maybe a slight exaggeration) we arrived at the top. At the top there were many things to see and it was a nice park/shrine. Once we had finished walking around our assistants took us for dinner. I told them I didn't want to eat because someone was cooking dinner for me. However I was tempted at times to just start eating all the food. But 90% of the time I was able to resist haha.

When I finally managed to get to You Lan's restaurant it was about 8pm. Her parents had prepared a lot of food for me. First I had cabbage in some soup, potato strips, rice, chicken and chips. Yea her family made chips for me, I didn't ask them too but they made them. The chips were thin like French Fries and not fat like how home made chips normally are. The mum also made some home made tomato ketchup for me too. It taste quite sweet ^-^. Overall I liked the food and it was even better that I didn't have to pay anything, thanks You Lan. =)

Earlier I had asked You Lan if she wanted to come to the mountains with the foreign teachers and I but she had said no because her uncle was visiting. We then agreed to go the next day which was Tuesday. She said I should get up early to go because that is the best time since the sun is not high and the weather is cooler. We decided upon 8am to meet up.

When Tuesday came You Lan, her sister and her cousin were waiting for me outside my place ready to go. We walked to the mountains hung out at the top for a bit took some pictures and fooled about. Later her little cousin said she was hungry so we went back pretty quickly, on the way back we passed a Mosque and outside where Chinese Muslims, they all seemed excited to see me. Maybe they thought I was Muslim too, who knows haha.

While we were going back we came across this dog yard, basically it was a yard filled with dogs and puppies too. The puppies were playing with each other and the other dogs were just walking around. There must have been maybe 6 or 7 dogs there and about 5 of them were puppies. I took some pictures and then left.

You Lan then took me to some place to have something called Bouzu (I don't know the spelling), it was like a dumpling. I preferred the meat one which was smaller to the bigger one filled with Tofu and Vegetables. You Lan told me that she had to go to the country to visit her grandparents for a few days but she told me to come look for her in the restaurant in a few days. I was like sure, will do.
In afternoon the other teachers and I went to the town and supermarket. I bought some incense and other fresh smelling things. I also bought a mop since there was no way to dry the one I had been using and it was getting a little annoying. I also bought a dart board for like 28 yuan which is nothing. I thought it would give us something to do in the dorm.

Later that evening we went to eat at some out door restaurant that just cooked food on a barbecue. You choose which food you would like and then would cook it for you. The food was pretty cool and not too expensive either. It worked out to be 88 yuan for 5 of use to eat there.

Not sure what I'm doing today but it appears that I do not have to go to school until the 5th hehe. So I can rest and do what ever I like for a little while longer. I think I might go and play some darts now, will post again soon.

Finally....Someone to talk to.

OK so finally the VSO teachers have moved in. There are three women and one man. Unlucky for me though they are all mature people, but I guess that may not be such a bad thing since they know how to look after themselves. So far today they been buying things to use to clean the house with and new sheets for the bed etc. While we were at the supermarket everyone was crowding around them, people seemed very interested in what they were buying. But it felt nice for once not to be the center of attention. Even on the street more people were concerned with the new people from VSO and me. ^-^

Yesterday when the teachers first arrived we all went out for dinner and met some important people such as the dean of education or something like that. We went to a restaurant I had never been to before. There were about 11 of us at the table and they order much food for us and keep telling us to "eat...eat...eat" was quite funny at the time.

The also tried to force people to drink some very strong alcohol, but I didn't drink any no matter how many times they offered. Later the Headmaster of my school was playing a drinking game with someone else at the table, I think it was the vice dean of education. The game had them shake 3 die in a cup and then try and guess how much of each number there are in your cup and your opponents. The Headmaster then played the game with me but I was confused and lucky I wasn't drinking otherwise I would have been very sick. The Headmaster won maybe 5 out of the 6 rounds we played.

So far its nice to have someone else living at the dorms, they are friendly people which makes it good. The also said there will be 4 other Chinese girls coming to live with us to be their interpreters. Wow going from just me to a full house in such a short time, thats crazy haha. I wonder what these girls will be like.....they just better not drink up my drink, thats all I'm gonna say. ¬_¬

Well right now nothing much is happening, I wanted to get a haircut but Mr. Lee isnt picking up his phone. I wanted him to tell the barber what it is I would like, plus I think he may know of a good place for me to get to get it cut. Anyways I think this is all for now, will post soon.

Its Saturday...But I'm Still At School!!!!!!!!!!!!! O_o

OK let me start by saying what happened yesterday evening. First I went out to get my dinner like I normally do now (seeing how I cant cook and I can afford to eat out). I then went to one of the two shops I go to. The man that works there was trying to entice me to buy things, random things on the shelf but I kindly refused.

As I was looking in the shop he tried to tell me what something was (in Chinese) but I didn't understand what he was saying. He then called to the back and his daughter then came out. She speaks some English so it was nice to have someone understand me. She told me what it was, I then spent a good hour or two in the shop with the man his wife and his daughter. They would ask me questions and other things. The Wife was then measuring her husbands height with my own (he is taller than me) , he then began to measure his foot with my own. He then tried on my shoe and seemed to think it looked good on him. It was all quite funny to me, but at least all this had me out of my room.

The Dad then asked how much my shoes were, I told him maybe £55. Then he wanted to know how much it was in Yuan. I did the calculation and it turned out to be 605yuan. The Dad was like "WAhhhhh" he was even more shocked when I told him they were made in China haha. The Mum was asking questions too, then she asked if they could take a picture of me and I said sure. These people are nice so I don't mind them taking pictures of me. We then started to do some price comparisons between England and China and they were quite shocked at how much money people earn in England.

I then spent some time talking to their daughter, she is the same age as me and seemed like she wanted to be friends. I was like sure, I don't know anyone else round here. I asked her if she was busy because I didn't want to keep her from what she was doing, but I told her that its boring in my room so I just wanted someone to talk to. Later the daughter went to the back of the shop (living quarters), I then continued to walk around and ask the Dad whats what.

After a little while the Dad told me to go to the back (well he pointed really), I did want he said and saw the daughter on the computer. They told me to sit down on this little stool, damn the thing was so low I nearly popped my back haha. Anyways the daughter was using the computer or rather she was using this thing called QQ. She asked me if I had QQ (like my students the other day) but I said no. She then told me she was talking to her friend and she was telling that I was with her. I realised she was talking about me because I saw her write lao'wai (i think that's how you spell it) before the computer turned it into Chinese characters. Her friend was like "WAhhhh", then the daughter turned on the web cam so her friend could see me. The daughter later asked if I had a phone, I said yea I do. Why you wanna know? Then she said no reason...lol. So I think she wanted my phone number. I will give it to her next time, would be nice to know someone that can speak for me lol.

After she was done she was like use the computer, I was like are you sure and she was like yea go on ^-^. So of course I did. Their Internet was slightly better then here at the school, it was faster and I could access my web pages quicker. Then later the daughter came back and took some pictures of us together. She was having difficulty getting a good pic so the mum came and took the pic, they seemed very happy to take pictures with me. In one of the pics I made a funny face and then the daughter ran off to her father laughing. Then the Dad came to the room with his phone ready to take a picture with me. It was all quite funny but I did not want to over stay my welcome so I shortly left after this at around 9:30 ish.

Today I had to quickly prepare my lessons before the classes started. I arrived at 7:30 and my first lesson was at 9:40 so I had plenty of time to do it. As I walked up the stairs however some of my students from my first lesson on the Monday just gone had the classes homework for me. I was surprised they had it for me. I took the work and Mrs. D and I marked them in the office then gave them back to the students in the class at 9:40.

This weeks lessons for the Juniors and Seniors are quite similar, they are all to do with Keeping Fit/Healthy. Again like the lessons earlier this week the basis for the lessons is group work, this will allow all the students to be involved in the lessons. They basically had to list all the things they felt you can do to keep fit and all the things you can eat to keep fit. Some of the students today were very good but others not as good. But no sweets today because I haven't had a chance to go to the supermarket.

I will have only one lesson tomorrow then I'm free until Thursday (i think). So I can get a nice rest from school. No more getting up at 6:30 for a few days. =D

But today's lessons have finished and I'm about to go back to my room soon. Later I will go back out to eat dinner but I find that I am getting a little tired of having rice and/or noodles everyday. I want something else, what I wouldn't do for a Pizza or some Chips lol. Although the students and I did discuss that these types of foods are bad for you, but what they don't know wont hurt them lol. Saying this though, if I wanted to eat some junk food I would have to travel 2 hours on a train to Xi'An. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......................=( looks like I will have to find other Chinese food to eat lol. But now I guess I will have to learn some new words other than fried rice and fried noodles so I guess its not all bad lol.

Anyways thanks for reading.

Last day of School...or so I thought.

OK yesterday was just like the other days, not much happend. However my last class of the day was the worst. The students did not understand hardly anything I said to them. You could say this was because they were Junior students but I found that other Junior students I had asked similar questions to were fine with them. The could just be because of their poor English skills or rather Mrs. D's lack of translation. Either way these students did not get any sweets, I told them they have to try harder next time.

Today was pretty cool, I was teaching all Seniors today. I saw some students that I often see in the restaurant I go to. Sometimes students knowing before seeing you in the class can be a bad thing. By this I mean the students tend to act up and play about because they think you are their friends. Fair enough I may be friendly with them outside the class but they should respect me and my wishes in the class.

The questions portion of this class was quite funny because this one students asked me for a hug, yea thats right some boy asked me for a hug lol. I thought...um....I dont want the students to think I'm evil so I gave him one and everyone applauded haha. The students often ask if I have a girlfriend also, but these girls are way too young for me lol. Plus they wouldn't understand what the hell I'm saying. I also noticed students taking pictures on the sly, I said to them at the end of the class if you want to take pictures I do not mind at the end of the class.

My last class of the day was better due to the fact Mr. Lee was helping me. There was one girl in the class who was quite good at English. I was surprised when I told her to ask a question. I also noticed that she would help the other students a lot. At the end of the question time I told the students (because I saw someone taking pics of me on their phone) to take pictures with/of me if they like. Many of them rushed to the front and posed while their friends took pictures of us. The girl who I thought was good at english gave me a water balloon, why I dont know haha. This other girl also gave me a star folded from a straw, its pretty cool. I will take a picture of it if I can haha. But the students liked me it seemed, even one students asked me if I knew Usain Bolt hahaha. I said nope I dont, sorry.

Well this week has been ok so far, but because there is a holiday right now in China I have to teach Mondays and Tuesdays lesson on the Weekend. I will have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off instead. So no rest for me yet....shit I need to prepare my lesson. O_o

PS: right now they are playing "End of the Road" by Boyz 2 Men over the speaker system haha.

Pictures and Videos

I just want to let you guys know about the picture/video situation. Well basically I can't upload any pictures let alone videos using the computer here in my office.

Every time I try to add pictures to somewhere like Facebook.com the computer locks up and freezes on the same "uploading" pop-up but it never adds any pictures to the website.

I have tried today to update some of the earlier posts on here with pictures but again it just froze on the uploading screen, so I'm sorry about this.

PS: I have resized all my pictures so each file is now only 8-10kbs rather than 200+kb per picture. But still I'm having the same problem. Looks like I will have to upload the pictures once I get back to England.

3rd Day of School

OK let me start first by saying what happened after my lesson yesterday. Well since I only had one lesson, I had plenty of free time in the afternoon. After I had my lunch I thought it would be nice to see if I could get a chance to play some Basketball. I went to the playground and watched as the students played, I thought to myself which group should I join. Then as I was standing there a few of the students said "...you want to play ball?", I was like sure why not. They gave me the ball first and gestured their hand as if to say "...please shoot the ball", I did as they asked and I shot.

Unfortunately my skills in basketball are not what they used to be. I missed about 9 of my 12 shots haha. Well it was after a few shots the students thought they would try their luck with me. The probably thought "...hey, hes black he must be good at B-ball" but they were sadly mistaken, yes this was/is my sport of choice but I am too out of practice to be considered any real challenge. The students came at me one-by-one and I had to go through them. I managed to succeed with a few plays but soon I began to tire due to lack of exercise and practice in Basketball. This soon became the students opportunity to go to town on me and brag to their friends they beat a black man at Basketball lol.

The students the decided to start a game of 5 on 5, half court. As we begun to play other students from the schools started to watch from their classroom window and gather around the court. This was not a surprising to me considering I still remember what happened when I played Badminton for a little while haha. Unfortunately some (well most) of the students went after a while due to them having lessons. I still stayed in the playground with a few of the other students. Supposedly these students don't like going to all their lessons or they had a free period, who knows lol. With them was one of the schools security guards. One of his duties I was told was to send students to their lessons, but it seemed he did not care as much as treated the students I was with more like friends. I didn't mind, gave me someone to play basketball with.

After a while even those students had to go so I went back to my office. After about 1 hour or so I went back out to the playground once I had seen the students playing again. I stayed out there for a few hours maybe 3 or so. Then like always many of the students had to go to their next lesson. But 3 students stayed outside with me (at this time it was after 7:00pm), I asked them why don't they have lessons as well, they simply said "....we do, but we are bad boys haha" I was like ok then. These 3 guys were pretty cool they stayed outside playing until maybe 8:30pm. It was so dark thought, I didn't even know why we were still playing lol. They also told me different things they like, such as wrestling, kung fu and hip-hop. I was like cool, they then asked me would I like to go to karaoke but I declined mainly due to me having lessons all day today. I told them maybe on the weekend, because I will be able to sleep all day the next day. They were like sure, ok then.

Well today was the day where I have 6 lessons, this is the most amount of lessons I have in one day each week. There were a total of 4 Senior Classes and only 2 Junior classes. This has been one of the best teaching days by far, mainly due to how responsive the students were to the lesson. It also helped that they seemed genuinely happy to meet me. Today however I had three different teachers helping me in 4 of my classes, this made a fresh change from having Mrs. D there helping me all the time.

I think these classes were normally taught English by these teachers and they felt it best for them to help their own class. Once I had finished my 3rd class and was waiting for my 4th to begin, many students from the 3rd class started to crowed around me as Mrs. D and I were waiting outside the class waiting for our lesson to start. I was a bit overwhelmed but the amount of students, however they were simply there to pratice their English and ask me some more questions. I of course was happy to help them.

The girls seemed to want my MSN and asked if I had this thing called QQ which is a Chinese MSN type thing. I gave them my hotmail address but told them I cant use MSN while I am here in China. But they didnt seem to mind, one girl even asked me to write my name on her arm haha. They are seriously acting like im some kind of superstar, but im really just me a normal guy ^_^.

Well since it is now the 3rd day I pretty much have my teaching method, so far it seems to be working well. First I introduce myself, then I ask the students to pratice and lastly I get the students to introduce themselves to me. Then near the end of the lesson I get the students to ask me any and as many questions as they can. After this has been done I then give out some sweets (the kids love them sweeties lol) to the students who I felt spoke English the clearest and the best. In the last Junior class it seemed as if many of the students knew what I was going to get out of my bag when I told them I was going to give out something haha. But I still only gave the sweets to the students who I thought were the best.

Well I have now run out of pot noodles, so I will have to start eating dinner at a restaurant or god forbid buy more pot noodles TT_TT. Well I think I will also buy some apples in a minute, they are quite nice here, very sweet. Well thats it for today will update soon, thanks for reading.

2nd Day of School

OK I just finished my second day of school. Today I had only one lesson but after having my first lesson with the Seniors yesterday I was thinking whether or not this lesson would go smoothly. I arrived at the school for 7:35 after Mrs. D had told me we had to be there for 7:40. However Mrs. D came late haha, shame. Mrs. D later told me to change the way I taught the lesson because the Senior students found it boring because they didn't understand what I was saying. Mrs. D suggested that I should just do the "Introductions" informally rather than formally like I had been doing. I thought about it and decided to try it her way. Anyways Mr. Lee surprised us by coming into the office. He told us that he would sit in on this lesson instead of Mrs. D because it is his class. I was like ok then, sure.

As I arrived in the class I noticed how friendly the students seemed unlike that other evil Senior class haha jokes. Anyways I wrote on the board as per usual "my name, where I'm from and my age" but as I was explaining Mr. Lee told me to stop so he could translate. I was thinking WTH this would make my life so much easier, why hasn't Mrs. D being doing this? So after a few sentences Mr. Lee would tell me to stop so he could translate. This worked much better because the students could understand what the hell I was talking about. Normally Mrs. D sits at the back of the classroom and lets me just talk then I have to shout to the back "Mrs. D, Mrs D can you translate please because they don't understand!". Anyways the way Mr. Lee was doing it was much better.

I then asked the students to practice introducing themselves and greetings for a few minutes amongst themselves. Afterwards I went around to individual students and asked them to introduce themselves. This took up all of the lesson but I only managed to speak to 1/4 of the class. At the end of the class I told the students not to be afraid to speak English and they should try to improve it. This was when I noticed one girl taking a picture of me, I was like O_o.............OK then what the hell and I posed lol. Then more students got their Cameras out and started to take pictures. Then a few of them rushed to the front and started grabbing on to me and posing with the peace (v sign) so their friends could take pictures. Other students then said "...I would like to be your friend" I was like "...sure you can teach me Chinese" haha.

So this lesson today was alright, seemed fairly easy. But I know not all lessons are going to be easy like this. I also forgot to give them the sweets haha, next time...next time. But I guess if I see some of the students again before next week I will give them the sweets. Its soon time for lunch but I wonder what I shall have...there are really only two options (well for me anyways) rice or noodles. I'm getting a little tired of having pot noodles for dinner at my place though =(, its making me a little sick now lol. Hopefully though, this rumor about the other foreign teachers and I getting a cook next week are true hehe.

First Day of School

After a semi-anxious night of sleep I was ready for my first day of school. Originally Mrs. D told me to be at the school for 8:00am, but at around 7:15am she phoned me to ask/tell me to come earlier. I was annoyed because we had arranged to meet up on Saturday and she never showed up. I told her I need to shower, get dressed and eat something and that I will be there as soon as possible. Well in the end I got there for 7:50 so technically I wasn't late I was earlier since we had agreed on 8:00am.

When I got to the school gate the technician guy came to register my finger print on the finger print scanner. Its like a clocking in/out machine you may or may not have at work. But I guess this way no one can clock in for you lol (damn >_<). After that was done Mrs. D and I went to our office and waited until 9:40am to have out first lesson. She also informed me that the Headmaster said he wants us both to be at the school on Mondays for 6:40 for the raising of the flag (ah wah di rars O_o). 6.40 that's a bit extreme to come to school and we will have to wait until 9.40 to have our first lesson, that's a joke. Also the Headmaster said he wants us to be in school by 7.40 each day, ahhhhhh why so early T___T.

Well anyways I had my first of 5 classes today, 4 of them were the Junior classes and one of them was a Senior class. My plan for the lesson was to follow the book I had received from the agency however during the lesson it seemed like the children were struggling. First I introduced myself and told them I was from London, England. The whole point of this weeks lessons are for the students to learn greetings and introductions. I read out some examples of greetings for the students and got them to repeat what I said. Then I asked the students (with the help of Mrs. D) to practice with the person (or their friend) sitting next to them. Once they had finished this I selected a few students to come to the front to demonstrate their English conversation to the rest of the class. The students who came up were given a sweet that I bought from the Supermarket, this is really to encourage them. But I hope they dont think they gonna get sweets everytime they come up to demonstrate. Dorian what have you done >_< lol.

Oh yea in the first class before I said anything except "Hi" as I walked in the class the students begun to sing. I was thinking whats going on, they all sang the same song fairly loudly was cute thought lol. At the end of that first class the a couple of the students gave me a bird, yes that's right a baby bird lol. It sat in my hand and wasn't scared of any of us. I asked Mrs. D why doesn't it fly away and she said its because its too young. But I kindly gave the bird back to the students because I can barely look after myself let alone a bird. The bird resembled a sparrow or something like that.

After 3 Junior classes I had my first Senior class. Immediately I was stunned to see twice as many students in the same size classroom. The class was over packed to the point where you couldn't really walk from one end of the class to the other. Another thing to note is the different ages of the students, some are really young and some are really old. It seems like they have a system like America as in, if you don't pass you stay in that same grade for another year. As soon as I began the lesson it was obvious these students couldn't understand what the hell I was talking about. These students seemed less enthusiastic to learn unlike the Junior students. They also didn't understand my instructions (or Mrs. D was telling them something else).

The students ended up doing the lesson in the wrong order, they came up to demonstrate before they had even practiced. This flopped the task because they were not prepared because they had not practiced briefly before hand. It was said that the Senior students English abilities are poor compared to the Junior students, mainly due to them not liking English as a subject. You would think it would be the other way around i.e Senior students better and Junior students not as good but I guess not. Hopefully I can change that by finding out what the Senior students like (if anything lol) about English.

Ah well it was clear from all the 5 lessons today that the students enjoy getting sweets (more so the Seniors they were all shouting for sweets, big kids lol) and playing Pictionary. This was the game I decided to play with the students at the end of the lesson. Unfortunately some of the students English skills were not that great and they could not read certain words like House, Dog, Radio, Computer and Fruits. This made the game slightly difficult for them since they only knew the Chinese word for these things. I had to help them occasionally by drawing for them, because they either spent to long drawing or drew something totally different to the word. One girl drew a Cat when the word was Car, but I guess this is a simple mistake for them.

So day one is over, only one lesson on Tuesdays but I will have to use the rest of that day to restructure the lesson and dumb them down. It appears the books from the agency are too difficult for the students. So the lessons from Wednesday onwards will be easier for the Juniors and even easier for the Seniors.

Will update with more happenings as time goes on.

Before My First Day of School

Well on the weekend I wanted to go out to the Supermarket to buy some supplies to use in class with the students. I had asked my assistant Mrs. D to help me and she agreed on the Friday. Saturday came and she was no where to be found. I woke up early ready and waiting for our agreed leaving time which was 11 o'clock. 11 o'clock came and she didn't show up, I phoned her but a message told me "...the phone you are currently trying to reach is switched off. At this point I was getting slightly annoyed to say the least. I waited, waited some more and even some more but still she never came.

Just in case you are wondering I wanted her to go to the Supermarket with me because I cant speak Mandarin and the whole thing of telling the bus driver when to stop is a bit funny to me. I waited til night until I got a phone call from Mr. Lee asking if I had eaten dinner yet, I obviously said know because people who know me know I like to eat late (btw it was only like 7 at the time lol). For lunch I had eaten a pot noodle, it seems like I eat those everyday. I feel like I'm starting to get a little sick from eating those now lol. Any who Mr. Lee picked me up from my place and he took me to a noodle place. I hadn't been to this place before but the waitress seemed happy to serve me.

Mr. Lee had told me as we left the restaurant that if he had time tomorrow he will take me to the Supermarket. At the time I didn't mind if I went or not because I was just annoyed with Mrs. D. I went back to my room and then found myself watching some silly Zombie movie because it was in English and had Chinese subtitles. The movie was one of the ones in the series "Night of the Living Dead" but even so this didn't make the movie any better haha.

Sunday came and in the afternoon Mr. Lee phoned me and asked if I had lunch yet, I simply said no. He then told me he will take me out for lunch (just so you know he takes me but I have to pay for myself lol), we went to the same noodle place as the other night. As we walked there this little boy maybe 4 or 5 yelled "heigui" which if you don't know means "Black Devil" this time it didn't bother me. However later the boy and his grandma came into the restaurant to chat to the people there while looking at me at the same time. I explained to Mr. Lee that they shouldn't call people Heigui because its derogatory/offensive, supposedly its the equivalent of calling someone a nigger. He tried to explain to them but I don't think they really understood or cared to be honest and even Mr. Lee himself seemed a little unsure as to why it was wrong. But I will just put it down to lack of education because I'm sure they wouldn't like it if I pointed and called them "Yellow Devil" but ahh well hopefully they will understand with time.

After the restaurant Mr. Lee, his son (sorry I forgot to mention him. he is about 7 I think) and I got on a bus towards the Supermarket. When we went into the Supermarket I got the usual stares but I tend not to pay as much attention to them anymore. While I was walking around this woman came up to Mr. Lee and asked him (in Chinese) why is he always with me, I guess she has seen him with me before. Hopefully he told her its because I cant speak or understand Mandarin.

I carried on walking through the Supermarket, I was mainly there to buy stuff for my lessons like I said before and also some sweets to give students who come to the front to demonstrate their English skills. Their pic 'n mix section here works differently from in the UK, certain sweets cost more even though they are all in the pic 'n mix section, weird eh. When I was about to leave this floor of the Supermarket the female employees started to because curious with me. One of them had already spoke English to me so others wanted to speak to me too. It was mainly one woman who was interested in me, she would asked Mr. Lee questions then he would translate. Then more employees started to gather round. They all started to ask me funny questions, the main one didn't believe I was from England because I was black haha. I explained to her (well Mr. Lee to explained to her) that there are all different types of people in England and especially in London.

The conversation with the women continued they asked me if I would take a Chinese woman home with me and I said no since I already know so many Chinese girls anyways lol. She also asked (at this point there was a man and his wife standing with us) if I stayed in China long enough will I become white? If someone said that to be in England I would think they're stupid but here (in China) I feel they lack education about certain things. I told her "no" that is impossible. They (the women) then asked me if I could be White, Yellow or Black what colour would I choose? I said I like being Black so I choose Black. This was when the Man said "everyman likes his own skin". The man then began to ask why I was here in China, we told him it was to teach oral English. He then said I would do a good job because I have good pronunciation (yea right) lol.

After the man had left two boys came up to the group and said "hello, how are you" I simply replied "fine and you?". The boys seemed happy to be speaking (practising) their English with me. They also asked if they could take a picture with me (I'm more than happy to take a picture if they ask me first) but unfortunately for the boy his phone was dead so no picture that day. During this time they women (mainly that one) was asking questions she wanted to know if I had a baby with a Chinese women what will the baby look like. I just said he/she would have brown skin probably lighter than mine and have eyes like their Chinese mum. They seemed to be intrigued with the idea of this lol. I'm surprised they don't know what mixed race people look like, I'm sure they have seen them on TV. But I guess they didn't know they were mixed race when they saw them on TV.

After like 30mins of chatting to this giggling women Mr. Lee and I decided to continue walking around the Supermarket. The women said as we left, come back anytime *wink* ^_< *wink* haha I was like sure. Since I already had the sweets I went downstairs to pick up some stationary for the class. Mr. Lee's son had been in the book section reading as Mr. Lee and I walked around the shop. But as it was time to pay his son had dissapeared. In England this would be a big ordeal but Mr. Lee looked for his son but did not seem too worried. The first thing I thought was that his son was kidnapped because I heard a lot of Children get kidnapped off the street in China. But in this area it seems like everyone knowns everyone so no wonder Mr. Lee was not that worried. Mr. Lee chucked me on a bus and told the bus driver when to stop for me. Mr. Lee thought it would be best if he looked for his son by himelf. But it turned out his son must have gotten bored while he was with us and made his own way home on the bus haha.

At My School

Well I have arrived at my School in the county of Zhen'an which is in the province of Shaanxi. I arrived at the school last week Wednesday and have been staying in the foreign teachers living area. My school is "The 2nd Middle School of Zhen'an". Currently I am the only foreign teacher at the school so it is a bit boring at my place. But I guess I don't have to worry about anyone stealing my food, well for now anyways lol.

My room is fairly decent, i have a double bed, TV, my own bathroom and a desk. Although I can only watch Chinese stations on the TV so its a bit annoying. I don't have the English station CCTV9 on it either, so everything is in Chinese. You may be saying something like "...well, duh you're in China" and yes i can agree with you but the only thing is, I don't understand anything they are saying on the TV lol. There is one upside to the TV situation and that is now and again there are English Language movies shown with Chinese subs. In the dorm I also have a kitchen and a dining room but I will have to share this with the other foreign teachers if/when they arrive.

The school is pretty cool and most of the teachers are friendly. The kids however are like most of the people in Beijing, they are very surprised to see a black foreigner. But I feel these students are more interested in practising their English with me than starring and pointing.

When I eat out I tend to go to two places. I normally order the same meal at either place which is normally rice with beef or noodles soup. Both of these meals are fairly inexpensive, the noodles work out to be 5yuan and the rice with beef is 10yuan. That is really cheap considering in England a sandwich can cost like £3 (30yuan) or more. The restaurant is cool because I often see the same group of students come in. They are always friendly to me and one of them always speaks English with me. She is one of the few students I can actually ask where something is in English. I also noticed that I am the last person students who have never seen me before want to sit next to. The students that talk to me on a regular basis always sit on the same table as me which is good because they have no reason to fear me, im a nice guy...honest ^_^ lol.

Like the restaurants I mainly visit two shops to buy things. One shop is run by a man and his wife (that's me assuming that's who she is) they are both very friendly and a lot of the time I visit the shop they try and offer me food, like what they are eating. The other shop I got to is run by a family (I think), at the front is a woman and most of the time she has her daughter (again I'm assuming) with her. The girl looks to be about 8 or 9. Both the woman and the girl are very nice and they always try to help me if I look confused about something lol. Like the other shop they sometimes offer me food as well.

The area is quite rural i.e dirt roads and all and the people seem to be interested in seeing a black man in their area. They often make noises or whistle to get my attention because they can not communicate in English well if at all.

Last week I went to where all the shops are which is a short bus ride away. The bus ride was very cheap, it worked out to be just 1 yuan. But unlike London buses you don't press a bell to stop the bus you just shout at the driver "STOP!!!" and he will stop at the next bus stop haha.

While I was in the shopping district a lot of people were starring (I've come to expect this now) and pointing. Its really weird because they would turn their neck right around just to look at me if they are walking past. They even slow down their cars as they drive past just to look me in my face.

I wanted to use the Internet while I was in the area so Mr. Lee who was accompanying me on this trip took me to a Internet cafe. While there all the youngsters were looking at me and the girl behind the counter took a picture of me on her camera phone (again I'm kinda used to this now, i even pose lol). It was really cheap to use the Internet there, it cost me just 2 yuan for like 40 mins.

The main reason I went to the shopping district was to buy some cloths/sponges to wash up with. I also wanted to find a CD player so I could play my music out loud while I was in my room. However Mr. Lee and I could not find a CD player, supposedly they are not in fashion anymore lol. I ended up buying some speakers which I could connect my iPod to instead.

Oh this week at the school nothing much has been happening really. They still keep telling me that 4 more foreign teachers will come but me still nah see dem yet @_@. Well I guess I got a few more days of playing my music loudly lol. The headmaster at the school is pretty safe too, hes like "...if you got a problem, tell me and ill sort it out" so that's what i do. I told him what I needed at the dorm and then next thing you know everything I had asked for magically arrived lol. He also got someone to come wash my clothes for me.....by hand O_o. I felt a bit sorry for them, washing my boxers like lol.

I also got an assistant who will help me with lesson planning etc and general translations. Her name is Miss D and she pretty cool. Her spoken English is not as good as Mr. Lee's but hopefully the more she speaks with me the better it will get. Today I finished preparing some of the activities my students will do in the class. Although I need to pick up some stuff tomorrow at the supermarket for the lessons. Oh I will have 19 lessons a week and each lesson is 40mins. On Tuesdays I only have one lesson which is good but on Wednesday I have 6 lessons in that day. But that's only 4 hours I have to work for in that day so its not too bad.

I'm also lucky because the earliest I start is at 8 for my 8:30 am class in the morning, but the students have to come to school at 6:00 am. They stay at school from this time until 9:30 pm yea that's right at night. They have three breaks throughout the day lasting for around 2 hours so i guess its not too bad.

Well I think I've written enough for today will update when some more stuff happens.

Mmmmm...

I'm sorry I haven't been able to update this but the main reason for that is me not having any access to the Internet.

Well quite a lot has been happening here. I might as well start from the beginning. Last week I was assigned my first school which was the capital of Jiangxi Province named Nanchang. I was put on a 12hr train journey to get to this school from Beijing.

Once the journey had ended I was greeted (or so I thought) by a woman and a man. The woman was holding up a piece of paper with my name on. I approached them as if to say I am the person you have been waiting for, but you guys should have seen the look of disappointment on their faces.

They ushered me to one side with my suitcase and bags and then as quickly as you could say "oh shit" she was on the phone to the agency. I may not be able to understand Chinese but it was obvious that she had a problem with me and was taking out her anger on the agency.

Once she had finished her argument on the phone she approached me, I simply asked her what the problem was. But before she could say anything I simply said "is the problem due to the fact I'm black and not white?" and she replied without hesitation "yes". At the time I was quite pissed off about this, how can she discriminate against me based on that alone, she doesn't know me from Adam. She had assumed I was white because the agency had said I was from Britain, more fool her ¬_¬.

She then kindly (yea, right *rolls eyes*) helped me to buy a new train ticket from Nanchang back to Beijing. All the time she kept saying "sorry", well I was the one that was sorry. I was sorry that people like her still exist (dumb bitch ¬_¬). They left me in the train station all alone for 4hrs until I could get on my train again back to Beijing. But it was just my luck that this journey back to Beijing took 14hrs not 12hrs like the last time. All I could do was sleep on the train, nothing else to do really ='(.

Once I got back to Beijing I was pissed because I had wasted 26hrs of my life going to this place just to come all the way back. When I was explaining what had happened back at the agency I got a little upset (I know shocking init) but I guess all the pointing, starring, laughing, talking, camera phone picture taking got to me. But it was nice to see Ryan again, I was still surprised he didn't get placed in a school yet lol.

Later that day David (one of the guys at the agency) went with me to Tiananmen Square. There were not many people there at the time but while David and I were taking pictures some random Eastern European man comes up to me and asks can he get a picture. I was like WTH O_o haven't you seen a black person before? Well for him I guess not. He was in a group of about 6 people and they all jumped in the photo with me. But Just as they were taking the pictures some Chinese guys got their cameras out and started to take pictures of us. Then some random Chinese woman with a baby jumped in the picture, it was quite funny to be honest but quite strange at the same time.

As David and I continued to walk around more people would come up to me and ask for a picture. I also told those people who were taking pictures on the sly to come and get a real one with me lol. One girl even asked me "...is it ok if I smile?" I was like what the hell, of course it is its your picture lol.

So this pretty much went on for the whole day, oh yea one crazy woman wiped my face with her finger to say as if it was dirty and she was whipping it off. I was just shocked that she did that but was still kinda funny, some people dont have a clue about anything. Good thing I'm here to teach them whats what lol.

There was this crazy woman at the bus stop who was even telling me how to pronounce the name of an area, she also had a young girl with her maybe it was her grandaughter. The girl then put her arm next to mine and was comparing how dark I was compared to her (the girl was kinda dark as well).

Well after all this happend we went back to the agency and was telling everyone all the crazy stuff that had happend.

Arrived in Beijing

Ok I managed to arrive safely in China yesterday. The flight was pretty quick to be honest, it was like under 10hrs. I watched a few films on the plane, nothing exciting though. I did see Indian Jones but that wasnt really saying much haha. I tried to sleep on the plane but damn its hard, my neck was all stiff >_<".

I was picked up by the agency and everything was fine. I walked around a bit once I was at the Hotel and I must say damn Beijing is hot O_o. It was even more noticeable when you would be in a shop then walk back out into the sun. It was a nice day too, blue sky and everything no smog either.

When I was picked up there was also another guy like me there named Ryan from Florida. He's cool, plus it helped that there was someone there who spoken fluent English. We were haning out toghether at the HQ but I did think to myself I should have brought some games because it was kinda boring waiting around.

While we were not at the HQ and were walking around we did see some funny stuff, but I guess its just funny to us because we're not used to it. We saw some old ladies playing in the park with a little ball that had feathers on it. They kicked the little ball; between the three of them. I also saw old people again working out in the park which was kinda cool. In the park there are many of these apparatus' people would use to keep fit.

Also walked to Beijing University didnt go inside but it looked kinda cool from the oustide. Took a few pictures. Oh that reminds me, when Ryan and I were having lunch some girl (chinese) comes up to us and asks us if we go to Beijing University. She wanted to know directions to it I think. But luckily we were there with some people who knew where it was haha.

Well I don't know what i'm gonna be doing today but ill keep this update when I can.

*will add pictures when I get a chance.